You don’t have to be an army, a SWAT unit, or a fortune 500 company to use of standard operating procedure (SOP). A small family of four could also build his own SOP, so they would know how to survive when the world as we know it seems to head to its end.

Probably, you would say that building that lifesaving SOP is rocket science, but it’s not.

It can be as simple as regimen or checklist that keeps you from forgetting important steps or training under stress.

What Is SOP and Why Do You Need It?

In self-reliant circles, SOP largely comes from regurgitated US military doctrine, which is quite often a very poor fit for small groups of people with goals very different from those of US military units.

But military doctrine does contain a lot of sound doctrine rooted in correct principle, and SOP is one such example.

SOP does port over to self-reliant disciplines very well and you would do well to leverage this important tool.

SOP is how militaries and large corporations like McDonald’s achieve a high degree of operational excellence with average and sometimes below average personnel. The have solid SOP and thoroughly train their personnel in it.

People do not eat at McDonald’s because the food is fantastic, they eat there because it is consistent. No matter where you are in the country or the entire world, you know what your burger will taste like, that it will not be cold and that you will get it fast.

That consistency comes from operational excellence, which comes from creating solid SOP and repetitively training personnel in SOP.